


lovers in your arms

by blanchtt



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-02 07:00:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20271844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: She has lived her life to come to this point, Ann knows suddenly, to be sitting in her favorite pink dress with a bow in her hair, Anne sitting across the sofa from her—not across the room but on the same piece of furniture! And in Anne’s fashion, Ann assumes from what she’s seen, what her cousin has told her, the other woman takes one glance at the penny newspaper before putting it aside and announcing loudly, “So!”And that one word, shockingly, takes them until four in the afternoon, discussion filled with everything from Paris to scandalous attire to Halifax coal.





	lovers in your arms

**Author's Note:**

> someone on tumblr asked for a daemon au.

She runs through the gardens, edge of her dress held fisted in hands to make it all a little easier despite knowing it’s highly unladylike. But she’s too far away from it all to matter—from the windows of Crow Nest, from the overbearing eyes of the tribe, from the general gloom that has settled over the place and the people, and Ann makes it to the little gate that marks the end of the estate, Godiva fluttering after her.

There, down on the lane, Anne’s dark figure walks swiftly, daemon by her side, slipping away, and Ann clutches at the gate as Godiva settles and perches on her shoulder, heart beating as she bounces nervously on the balls of her feet, decides, and calls out with an eager wave. 

-

What passes in between is negligible. 

-

She has lived her life to come to this point, Ann knows suddenly, to be sitting in her favorite pink dress with a bow in her hair, Anne sitting across the sofa from her—not across the room but on the same piece of furniture! And in Anne’s fashion, Ann assumes from what she’s seen, what her cousin has told her, the other woman takes one glance at the penny newspaper before putting it aside and announcing loudly, “So!”

And that one word, shockingly, takes them until four in the afternoon, discussion filled with everything from Paris to scandalous attire to Halifax coal.

(And in those four hours Ann learns Anne’s daemon’s name, that it is settled, than despite its size it is a red deer hind, no rack of antlers adorning its brow, a dark-colored doe befitting its dark-clothed mistress, and there is some homesick feeling in her, a yearning that she does not know what to do with.)

(She learns, too, that Anne is here to stay, to sink a pit, to lean in close and smile, arm along the back edge of the couch, and something else is promised, unspoken, by Anne’s gaze that drops away from her eyes now and then, by Anne’s languorous posture, by her confidence, and Ann turns away to hide her blush, smiles, warmth in her belly.)

The clock chimes and despite the fact that Anne rises and puts on her coat, there is no mournful coo let slip from Godiva who has never been apt at hiding what Ann feels. In fact, Ann smiles, stands too as Anne’s daemon Hypatia rises elegantly as well and takes her place at Anne’s side as Anne asks, straightening her lapels roguishly—

“Can I call again tomorrow?”

_\- _

_ There were moments in her childhood where Godiva was a calico cat or a dark-eyed rabbit. Smallish to medium sized things kept indoors, the kinds of proper daemons ladies were supposed to have, yes. _

_ Except she’s not very good at that either, can’t fit in just right because Godiva is never something very masculine, not like her sister’s Scottish Deerhound with its shaggy coat or her older cousin’s boar with its ivory tusks. _

_ But Ann sees no issue with that. She curls in her bed and reads with Godiva in the crook of her arm purring or cleaning a delicate paw, and can Eliza do that with her daemon? _

-

Ann paints her as Artemis, swift-moving, long-haired, bow and arrow in hand and quiver over her shoulder, hind beside her. 

They’re lingering and surely Catherine is downstairs brooding alongside her otter daemon at her sudden displacement as Ann’s closest confidante, but James has yet to finish loading her things on the carriage and so they have this moment in her bedroom to themselves for as long as it may last.

“This is…” Anne says, trailing off as she studies the thick drawing paper, Hypatia looking over her shoulder, and suddenly Ann wonders _ why _she’s decided to show it to her.

“It’s barely a sketch,” Ann cuts in apologetically, raising a hand towards it, because Anne is well-read and knowledgeable and fascinating and surely she’s overstepped her bounds painting her so. Godiva, perched on the couch, ruffles her feathers telltale nervously.

“Nonsense,” Anne says, not dismissive of her concerns but steadfast in her own opinion. “I think it’s a work of art.”

It’s high praise indeed from a woman who has no doubt seen the most beautiful of art across many museums on the continent, and Ann smiles. But Anne is not finished, and she’s close as she leans toward, smiling, and Ann sits up a little straighter, feels her heart beat more quickly at Anne’s easy smile, the warmth in her voice as Anne says—

“I think maybe you’re a little bit in love with me.”

-

_ When her parents die Godiva takes the form of a mourning dove, does so more and more until Ann wonders if she’s settled out of sheer grief. But there are flickers of change —a hare doe or a badger sow or anything else small and sharp and stubborn—that surface, that Ann cherishes in the privacy of her bedroom or parlor before hiding._

-

The thought does not scare her.

_ I think maybe you’re a little bit in love with me. _

Deprived of Anne’s company, she had thought of her at night, alone in her large room in someone else’s home in the Lake District, of Anne’s dark hair and witty charm and quick tongue and elegant fingers, had pulled the covers over her head to avoid Godiva who pretends tactfully to be asleep, hand working between her slick thighs towards something that ultimately escapes her but excites her nonetheless.

And now inside her is a fire that Anne has kindled and stoked, and back at Crow Nest Ann almost teases at Anne’s expression—priceless before she presses her up against the door and kisses her—that those that play with first risk getting burned, and what else did she expect making up to her like she’s done if not to be asked to stay all night and prove her mettle?

Later, after dinner and tea and coffee and talking in the parlor and everyone else has retired, in her room and in her bed there is Anne on her thigh, slick and hot and moving, and Anne’s fingers filling her deliciously, and Ann clutches at her shoulders, can hardly keep quiet except that Anne leans down, nose to her jaw, murmurs, “We have to be quiet, Little One.”

The pet name draws a heady spike of something out of her, and Ann cuts off her keen with difficulty.

They can have a life together, like Anne’s planned and set out so meticulously, as companions, as lovers, and Ann bites back the _ yes _ that she’s not promised Anne just yet, Anne with her words and body and daemon touching hers, Hypatia’s black nose pressed gentle against Godiva’s feathered breast Ann knows without seeing, _ yes yes yes _ as Anne’s free hand holds hers, fingers entwined as her body does something new and wonderful.

-

What passes in between here, too, is negligible. 

-

She finds Anne at the top of the coal pit, disheveled and screaming her frustration to the moors. 

Anne is too stubborn to have taken the money months ago when she’d offered and by the looks of it something must have gone wrong, but all Ann sees is the woman she loves in her great black coat, hair pulled back with a tie, square-shouldered, and clear-headed now Ann walks up to her, surprising her, Anne’s face like she’s seen a ghost as she turns around at the sound of her name.

For once it is _ her _hand that traces along Anne’s jaw, like calming a wild and skittish animal.

“I don’t think one hour passed,” Anne admits after a heavy moment, voice thick and wet with unshed tears. “Not one hour passed where I didn’t think of you.”

“I love you, Anne. I’m in love with you,” Ann says, smiling like a fool, because as brilliant as the indomitable Anne Lister is there are certain things that have, shockingly, escaped her notice, and Ann refuses to let that happen one more time, to hell with the consequences. Despite the time that has elapsed—the first time, the second time—the emotion remains unchanged, a mixture of love and lust and pride and a million other things that Anne makes her feel.

She feels Hypatia bow her head and press against her side, soul a mirror as Anne leans into her hand, dark eyes closing as Ann assures her, “I always have been.”

-

She lays a hand on Godiva, strokes her white plumage, gathers up her courage and walks with Anne side by side, kneels and takes the sacrament with a gold ring on her finger and a look towards her wife, her wife with her new blue coat and paisley vest and small cheeky smile, and finds the bread and wine sweeter than they ever have been.

-

_What does she do to them_, Ann recalls asking Catherine. She bites them, yes, Ann’s found, and she cherishes the marks that Anne leaves on her, testament to a night well-spent.

But she offers them another aunt and a father, a sister, two god-daughters, a marriage bed she goes to joyously at the end of the day, and a wife who lets her sleep on her shoulder no matter how much she snores. There is Hypatia who leans against her now, who Ann lays a hand on and strokes from time to time, and there is Godiva who has since their first union chosen her form of a swan, no longer in mourning.

“Tell me again how you met the Queen of Denmark,” Ann asks, turning over as Anne slips under the covers, settling against Anne as soon as she can, and with a kiss Anne, as always, indulges her.


End file.
